[5] On the morning of 10 August 1904, the Russian squadron at Port Arthur put to sea in an attempt to reach Vladivostok.

In the Battle of the Yellow Sea that day, the Russians suffered a defeat in which the squadron commander, Rear Admiral Wilgelm Vitgeft, was killed.

[6] The Russian destroyer Reshitel‘nyi put to sea from Port Arthur as soon as darkness fell on 10 August carrying a dispatch about Vitgeft's decision to attempt to reach Vladivostok.

[8] Upon her arrival at Chefoo on 11 August 1904, her commanding officer, Lieutenant Mikhail Sergeevich Roschakovsky, contacted the local Chinese authorities to make arrangements for his ship's internment.

[8][9][10] According to the Russian account of the ensuing incident, a Japanese boarding party from the destroyers went aboard Reshitel‘nyi at 03:00 on 12 August, and the officer commanding the boarding party demanded that Reshitel‘nyi either surrender or put to sea within two hours and fight the Japanese destroyers in international waters.

[9] The Japanese officer countered that Chinese neutrality did not protect Reshitel‘nyi, claiming that the Battle of the Yellow Sea had not yet ended because Russian ships still were in the process of fleeing the engagement and that Japan had a right to hot pursuit of Russian ships even in neutral waters under those circumstances.

[11] The men in the water eventually swam ashore,[11] and the Japanese, ignoring the protests of the senior Imperial Chinese Navy officer at Chefoo, towed Reshitel‘nyi to Dalniy, China, as a prize.

[11] However, the local Chinese authorities backed the Russian version of events and the press in the United States criticized the Japanese action.